Phone surveillance secrecy in Sarasota County nothing new

Questions about the legality of cellphone tracking, and about the secrecy surrounding it, have been raised across the country.

Ian Cummings

Efforts to keep certain cellphone surveillance methods a secret go back at least five years in Sarasota County.

At times, bits of information have slipped out, and the resulting alarm at such leaks among law enforcement officials provides insight into how StingRay and similar cellphone tracking devices have been used here.

A 2009 investigation by the North Port Police Department produced complaints from other agencies after details about cellphone tracking were included in a report to the State Attorney's Office. The case, involving a reported abduction, produced a chain of emails obtained by the Herald-Tribune.

The issue of cell tracking technology has become controversial across the country, including in Sarasota. Earlier this month, a judge threw out an American Civil Liberties Union of Florida lawsuit against the city of Sarasota that sought records of StingRay cellphone tracking.

StingRay devices are widely used by law enforcement to capture cellphone signals and track the movements of phones. The Sarasota Police Department has said it owns no tracking equipment but has a detective assigned to a U.S. Marshals Service task force in Tampa, which has access to the technology.

Questions about the legality of cellphone tracking, and about the secrecy surrounding it, have been raised across the country. The ACLU has complained that StingRay may be collecting information about innocent bystanders, and that police have been required to answer too few questions about how the technology is used.

Out of the public eye

Michael Barfield, vice president of the ACLU of Florida and a plaintiff in the Sarasota case, said the 2009 episode in North Port was revealing, in that it showed the lengths law enforcement agencies here have gone to keep the technology from the public eye.

In that case, a North Port investigation of a reported abduction included facts about cellphone tracking in a probable cause affidavit to the State Attorney's Office.

The affidavit was a public record, which worried some in the State Attorney's Office, as well as officers attached to the U.S. Marshals in Tampa, according to an email sent a month later by Sarasota Police Sgt. Ken Castro.

Writing to Terry Lewis, then the North Port police chief, Castro said the marshals had asked the police to avoid mentioning celltracking equipment in public documents.

“In reports or depositions we simply refer to the assistance as 'received information from a confidential source regarding the location of the suspect,' ” Castro wrote. “To date this has not been challenged, since it is not an integral part of the actual crime that occurred.”

Calls to North Port Police Chief Kevin Vespia on Thursday seeking comment on cellphone tracking policies were not returned.

Barfield called the tactic “absolutely misleading,” because confidential sources are usually understood to be people.

He said the ACLU would appeal the Sarasota case.

Justifying methods

Federal attorneys have argued that there is a national security interest in keeping information about cellphone tracking confidential.

But police often appear to be using the devices for local matters.

In this case, the North Port detective apparently used a StingRay or similar device to find the woman who had been reported abucted.

She was not seriously harmed, according to the police report.

It wasn't clear where the North Port police obtained the tracking equipment, but Sarasota Police Sgt. Castro wrote that the U.S. Marshals and Florida Department of Law Enforcement were known to have it.

Since then, there have been few revelations about which local police departments have StingRay devices on hand.

Barfield said the ACLU is seeking more transparency, but doesn't want to stop the police from making use of StingRays. They are, he said, generally recognized as a legitimate tool.

The 2009 North Port case came a year after the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office was blamed for mishandling the search for Denise Lee, 21, who was abducted from her North Port home and ultimately killed.

The Sheriff's Office settled a lawsuit claiming that mistakes left deputies unable to pinpoint Lee's location.